When it comes to horror, Junji Ito has proven himself to be a master. His illustrations elicit feelings of fear and disgust with their unique style and texture, and his stories are chilling, full of scares that combine the real with the supernatural. While Ito has written over a hundred stories, only twenty-four were adapted in the Junji Ito Collection, a twelve episode anthology anime from 2018. While many of Ito’s most popular works aren’t represented in this anthology, there are still quite a few good ones that shouldn’t be missed. Here are five episodes of the Junji Ito Collection that are vital to understanding his work just based on this anime alone.

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1. Episode 2 “Fashion Model/The Long Dream”

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Image Via Animax

This episode contains two rather famous stories. “Fashion Model” centers around screenwriter Iwasaki as he becomes increasingly unsettled with a horrific looking model, Fuchi, that was cast in a film he wrote. As they film their movie deep in the mountains, it turns out that Iwasaki’s unease was for good reason and that Fuchi was just as monstrous as she seemed. “The Long Dream,” on the other hand, is one of Ito’s most acclaimed works and involves three central characters: a neurosurgery patient named Mami, a psychiatric patient named Tetsuro Mukoda, and their attending physician, Dr. Kuroda. Mami reports seeing the Grim Reaper walking past her door each night and begins to worry about dying, but Dr. Kuroda tells her it’s only Tetsuro taking a nightly walk. However, Tetsuro’s body is frail and decrepit due to a strange phenomenon that makes his dreams last for years. Both stories highlight how Ito tells his tales - focusing on building up suspense and unease - and also showcases his use of body horror, particularly in terms of the appearances of Fuchi and Tetsuro.

2. Episode 3 “Boy at the Crossroads/Slug Girl”

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This episode contains a fairly long story, “Boy at the Crossroads,” and a rather short one, “Slug Girl.” The former tells the story of a town where girls often go to intersections to play a fortune telling game in the hopes of receiving good news about their love lives. It follows Ryuusuke, a high school student that finds himself in love with a girl in his class named Midori. But when Ryuusuke starts to feel that he is responsible for the death of Midori's aunt, he tries to avoid her. This leads him down a path to try and right a wrong he committed as a child. “Slug Girl,” the more popular of the two stories, centers around Yuuko, a chatty young girl who has suddenly gone quiet. When she hasn’t been at school in a few days, her friend Rie goes to her house to check on her. She finds Yuuko’s family in the garden battling the abundance of slugs that have taken residence then. Little did they know that Yuuko was battling a slug of her own…These two stories are further examples of Ito’s ability to create unsettling and upsetting tales by combining disturbing imagery and excellent storytelling.

3. Episode 4: “Shiver/Marionette Mansion”

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“Shiver” is one story that isn’t for those with trypophobia (fear of small holes clustered together). It follows Yuuji, a boy who becomes curious about his neighbor Rina, who isn’t allowed outside due to a severe illness. However, when Yuuji sees her through the window, she will point into the garden and chuckle, sleeve riding up to reveal several deep holes in her skin. It sparks a memory for Yuuji about his grandfather, which leads him to a suspicious artifact seemingly long forgotten. “Marionette Mansion” toys with the idea of who is the master and who is the puppet as it tells the story of three siblings who travel around with their father’s puppet show. The eldest son, Yukihiko, becomes angry at being made to move so often and runs away from home. Many years go by before the siblings are reunited, but Yukihiko now lives a strange life, tied up by the strings of puppeteers. These two tales show off Ito’s more supernatural side, combining elements of the unreal with the realistic struggles of life.

4. Episode 10: “Greased/Bridge”

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These two episodes have completely different feelings to them. “Greased” relies far more on disgusting imagery with its tale of a family living in a grease coated apartment above the father’s restaurant. Yui, the daughter, is consistently mistreated by her brother Goro, who has severe anger issues due to the grease he drinks and the bullying he receives for his acne. Yui grows increasingly uneasy about the saturation of oil in the house and begins having nightmares about the earth becoming drowned in grease. “Bridge,” however, puts a supernatural spin on a tale of loss and grieving. A woman named Kanako goes to the countryside to visit her ailing grandmother, who seems to be anxious about something. Upon arriving, she sees a man on the bridge leading to her grandmother’s home, but soon realizes he isn’t alive, but is actually a ghost. This leads Kanako to learn about how people used to be put to rest at the bridge and why her grandmother is so worried. “Greased” is an excellent example of Ito’s ability to conjure up an absolutely disgusting image (looking at you, scene where Goro popped every pimple on his face at once,) while “Bridge” displays some of the themes Ito likes to use in his work, such as death, love and tradition.

5. Episode 11: “Supernatural Transfer Student/Scarecrow”

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Two more stories that walk on the supernatural side, both “Supernatural Transfer Student” and “Scarecrow” deal with the unexplained. “Supernatural Transfer Student” centers on a group of students interested in the bizarre and unexplainable. When the group meet a transfer student named Tsukano, more and more strange things start to happen, and suddenly the group finds themselves in dangerous circumstances. “Scarecrow” is a story about a father who attempts to keep a young man named Toshio from paying his respects at the grave of his daughter, Yuki. The father takes a scarecrow from a neighboring field and stakes it into the grave to deter Toshio. However, soon the scarecrow begins to change, taking on human features similar to Yuki’s. Other grieving families follow in the footsteps of Yuki’s father, but it’s soon discovered that the dead are no longer silent in this form. These stories are perfect examples of the themes Ito loves to play with: loss, the unexplained happening to the mundane, and grieving. They also demonstrate how many variations he uses in these themes in regards to the use of supernatural elements.

If that isn't enough, check out our list of 7 perfect horror anime to get you in the Halloween spirit.

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